Mama's Sunday Pork Gravy (2024)

FAQs

What is the meaning of Sunday gravy? ›

Sunday gravy – also called Sunday sauce — is a meat and tomato sauce served over pasta and a staple of home cooking in American cities with a large Italian immigrant population.

How to Make Sunday Sauce Thicker. Simmering thickens the sauce, so it's just a matter of a little extra time on the stovetop. If it's not thickening up fast enough, open the lid more or remove it all together. Adding meat on the bone will also help thicken the sauce.

While both are pasta sauces, Bolognese places more emphasis on the meat. Sunday sauce, on the other hand, has a base of tomato sauce, which makes it more of a liquid than Bolognese. Despite their difference in appearance, flavor, and texture, many non-Italians conflate the two.

Here's the gist: the two ways Italians say “sauce” in Italian are salsa and/or sugo. Both words translate as “sauce” but never as “gravy.” Ragù doesn't even translate as “gravy” but comes close enough since it involves meat which is what people really mean when they say “gravy” (my personal opinion).

As Italian immigrants settled into their new lives in America, they adapted this tradition to their new environment. The name "Sunday Gravy" is thought to have emerged from the Italian-American communities in the northeastern United States, where the term "gravy" referred to a thick, meaty sauce.

Is everything great? You might say that it's all gravy—but why? This fun phrase stems from a traditional English saying that compared life itself to meat and potatoes, while the luxuries were gravy. If “it's all gravy” to you, you're probably enjoying life and its little luxuries.

If your gravy is on the skimpy side, you can thicken it quickly with flour or cornstarch. But don't add your thickener directly to the gravy, which will create lumps. Instead, try stirring in three or four tablespoons of flour or cornstarch into a small amount of cold water until you have a smooth paste.

Butter does not provide any thickening to a sauce, since it is made of just fat and water. But a chunk of butter, salted or unsalted, swirled into a sauce at the end, can temporarily emulsify a sauce, while adding richness and sheen, all of which are good things.

Another way to thicken gravy with flour is by making a roux. A roux is a mixture of fat and flour, and it's an easy way to thicken a sauce. If you make a roux, it should also be added incrementally. A final option is making a beurre manié, which is made by rubbing flour into butter to create a dough or paste.

Bolognese is most often made with either ground beef or veal. Ground beef chuck with 20 percent fat will make an excellent start for a flavorful sauce. Many recipes also recommend throwing in some ground pork for an additional meaty taste, and pork shoulder is a good choice for this application.

What is the difference between Sunday gravy and sauce? ›

The sauce is used to dress the pasta and is the first course, the meat with a side dish of vegetables is the second course. For a Sunday Gravy you can also vary the cuts of meat since you are not counting on the meat to break down into the sauce.

According to our Food Director Amira, not only does milk add a rich flavour to the bolognese, but it also “helps cut through the acidity of the tomatoes and red wine”. She adds: “It also makes the mince meat nice and tender, creating that melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness.”

“Sauce, never gravy.” “The dichotomy between gravy and sauce—I really have no idea,” he said. “I think mostly it's a geographical thing, with Jersey Italians preferring gravy whereas New Yorkers and people on Long Island saying sauce.

NY Times food editor Craig Claiborne wrote in 1979 that there was no difference, but the word sauce had a “more sophisticated ring to it.” Some people think only New Yorkers or pre-WWII immigrants say gravy and that more recent immigrants say sauce.

The only acceptable use of the word gravy is to describe what goes on top of your turkey. But, for some reason New Jersey Italians love to refer to sauce as gravy. How did that become a thing? Some people believe that when sauce stands alone, it can be called sauce, but when meat is added, it becomes gravy.

gravy | Business English

money that you receive without much effort: The company directors will mop up most of the gravy. a situation in which it is easy to make money or to enjoy a comfortable life without much effort: I can forget about the hard times because it's all been gravy for three years now.

NY Times food editor Craig Claiborne wrote in 1979 that there was no difference, but the word sauce had a “more sophisticated ring to it.” Some people think only New Yorkers or pre-WWII immigrants say gravy and that more recent immigrants say sauce. Both camps insist only “real” Italians say the word they use.

Whatever goes in to a family or individual's preferred Sunday Sauce, most can agree that it's more than a recipe: it's a ritual. For many, the concept of this dish goes alongside cherished memories, and it signifies a sort of "slowing down" that is synonymous with a Sunday.

In British and Irish cuisine, as well as in the cuisines of Commonwealth countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the word gravy refers only to the meat-based sauce derived from meat juices, stock cubes or gravy granules. Use of the word "gravy" does not include other thickened sauces.